Say it (if it's worth saving me)
by Jinxgirl
Summary: Mid season one, "The Sin bin." When Trish suggests that she and Jessica leave Kilgrave in his cell, Jessica takes her up on it.
1. Chapter 1

Say it (if it's worth saving me)

"What if you and I walked out of here right now? Lock the door and never came back? Just left it."

Trish Walker's voice was low, intense, as she turned towards Jessica, her blue eyes bright with feeling that Jessica had come to recognize all too well. It was a spark of new thought- desperate, fervent thought, brought on by equal parts hope and fear. Jessica had seen that look each time, just before Trish made a life changing and often self-destructive decision. It was a look she had come to dread, because inevitably, either by her own choice or against it, Jessica Jones ended up involved.

Jessica's bowed head lifted slightly, just enough for her to set eyes on the figure of the man imprisoned in the altered bunker before them. Soundproofed glass and concrete, hooked up with microphones she could turn on or off at will, had been the only way she could be sure that he would not be a danger to herself or to anyone else- not with his actions, but with his voice, his will. The man could and would cause the most gentle, nonviolent person in the world to commit torture and murder with a smile, at the briefest of his commands.

She had seen it happen more times than she could count. She had experienced it herself, for eight soul crushing months. Kilgrave was the single most frightening being she could ever imagine, more damaging than anyone with strength of muscle or skill at weaponry, because Kilgrave was the only person she knew of who could twist another person into being and doing whatever suited him most in the moment. Kilgrave was the only person who had ever been able to force Jessica into his control.

Kilgrave was terribly, terrifyingly dangerous. And in his presence, Jessica became someone else, someone dangerous too- even without his commands.

She had proven that just now, when his provocation had driven her to such anger she had nearly beaten him to death. Her own best friend had been forced to electrocute her along with him, just to stop her from crossing that line. She knew that Trish was shaken from seeing that side of her, from knowing just how close Jessica had come to going over the edge that Kilgrave had left far in the distance long before.

She had almost become a murderer, rather than a killer.

There was a difference, to Jessica. Causing the death of Kilgrave would not have been the first time a person had died at her hands. But the first time- it had been beyond her will, beyond her wish, no matter how much she suffered and regretted because of it. Killing Kilgrave now would not just be a killing. No matter how dangerous he was, no matter how damn deserving, it would be a death of her own will, on her hands entirely. It would be murder.

Jessica could not, would not, be a murderer. Not even of him.

Trish had to know that. She had to see that difference, that tiny but so important distinction. She had to realize what she was saying to Jessica, to make that suggestion. Didn't she?

The man who called himself Kilgrave was sporting the blood and bruises of her recent loss of control, sitting up in the shallow pool of water with his shoulders bowed, head slightly inclined towards his knees. He looked every bit the defeated, beaten soul, wearily awaiting whatever his tormenter would do to him next, but Jessica knew better. It was all an act for the camera's benefit, to deny her the proof of his powers that she sought. Kilgrave was nothing if not helpless, and as far from ordinary as Jessica herself. As she fixed her eyes on him, she could not even respond to Trish's question. She pressed the palms of her hands against the table the two of them sat behind, pretending she hadn't even heard her.

But Trish did not let the thought go. She never could, when she got into that mindset.

"Hope could take the deal. I have enough money to get us far away-"

"Trish," Jessica interrupted, her voice quiet, holding all the weariness of the words she couldn't seem to form. But Trish gave her no opportunity to further try, cutting her off as she turned to face her fully, her voice dropping in volume as it strengthened in intensity.

"I mean it. As long as he has your attention, as long as you care, he's in control."

Jessica was still, silent, as Trish's words sank in. She tried to push them out of her thoughts, to push down the rising temptation to even consider the possibility that what she was telling her was true.

But it was hard to deny it, even with Jessica's years of experience in avoidance. She had lost control in there, even with everything she knew and understood about Kilgrave. She had lost control long ago, when it came to him. He knew that. He used it, played it against her. He always would.

If she was there and available for him. If.

Her eyes flicked up towards him briefly in his captivity. He didn't smile, but there was a challenge in his eyes. He didn't have to move his lips or say an audible word for Jessica to know that he was smirking at her inwardly, feeling that he had triumphed, even in his imprisoned state. Because he had driven her to the reaction he wanted, even without an overt command. Because he had made her feel the way he wanted her to feel.

"I can't just leave," Jessica said abruptly, shaking her head hard in an effort to shake away his image in front of her, to shake out the thoughts creeping into her mind. "Not after everything. Not like this."

"Yes, Jessica, you can," Trish countered. "You can. You can walk away with me right now and never look back. You can leave. You can leave him, and no one else will be hurt. Everyone will be safe from him, and you'll be the one who made sure of that. YOU will be safe from him."

There was a note of pleading in Trish's voice with her last sentence, a rawness that Jessica had to swallow at the sound of, dropping her eyes to the side. She could not look at her adoptive sister's face and see the naked concern and caring that she knew would be there. Not now. How many times was it that Trish had begged her to be safe, to take care of herself…and how many times had Jessica ignored her and done as she pleased? How many times had Trish done the same, in response to Jessica's pleas?

But this time, it was so tempting to listen to her. This time, it seemed so much easier to just let Trish have her way.

"I can't," Jessica repeated, in affirmation to herself as much as to protest Trish. "I can't let Hope stay in prison. She doesn't deserve that. I can't let that happen to her."

"Why is she your responsibility?"

There was steel in Trish's voice now, a flinty edge that Jessica heard so rarely she could not avoid straightening up, looking her in the eye. Trish looked back at her squarely, making sure she was heard out.

"She is not your responsibility, Jessica. You barely even know her. Kilgrave threw her at you to draw you out. You're doing exactly what he wants you to do, Jessica. Even Hope knows that."

Hope did know that. All it took was listening to the terse bitterness of her voice on the phone, seeing the new hardness in her once soft eyes, for Jessica to see this for herself. Hope had been used, her life destroyed for the sake of making a statement to Jessica. Kilgrave had reeled her in with Hope as the bait, and she had followed.

But didn't that make her now responsible? Didn't that mean all the more that was owed to Hope, from Jessica?

"Hope is not the only person Kilgrave has screwed over," Trish continued, breaking the rapid flow of Jessica's thoughts. "What about the guy who lost custody of his kid? What about the people he's tortured or killed over time that you don't know about, or the ones that you do? He's left a trail of broken people in his wake, Jessica, and Hope is just one of the many. You can't fix all of them. You can't save all of them. Look what he did to you." She paused, then said more softly, her hand beginning to reach out as though to touch before she quickly drew it back, "Look what he's doing to you."

A better question might have been, what hadn't Kilgrave done to her? He had warped her thoughts, controlled her will, broken her mentally until anything and everything in her path seemed dangerous and startling. He had left her without sleep, without appetite, with a need for deadened emotions and memories that only drinking herself to blackouts could bring. He left her with blood on her hands, with hih invisible handprints on her body and her soul. He left her without friends, without family, without any self esteem or direction. He left her hating herself and fearing the world, even as she felt driven to save it.

He left her with the need to fix the very people she feared. The people like Hope.

Trish must have assumed that Jessica's refusal to answer her was protest or stubborn denial, rather than the desperate attempts to order her own thoughts. She spoke again, this time actually letting her hand ever so lightly come to rest on Jessica's wrist.

"Let Hope make her own choices in life, Jessica. Don't you think this is what she'd tell you to do too? Don't you think Hope would want to be certain that this could never happen to anyone else ever again, even if it meant that she would have to suffer a while longer? Think about it, Jessica. This is the only way. You let him out of there, for any reason, or send anyone else in, and anything could happen. Even to you. Especially to you. You try to capture him, film him, fight him, and everything you worked so hard for is at risk. He could and he will take control. You got him this far, Jess. He's locked away, he can't hurt anyone. This isn't on you anymore. You've done everything you needed to do. Why don't you just leave it now, Jess? Why don't you just walk away with me, and let this go?"

Jessica swallowed, the corner of her lip catching between her teeth before she realized and abruptly rearranged her mouth. She blinked, feeling sudden tears prick behind her eyes, and the hand on her arm squeezed gently. Fucking Trish, she had seen.

She opened her mouth, but the angry, dismissive words she had planned died before they left her lips. Trish saw that too, and her lips curved into a smile showing nothing but sadness.

"Jess….be honest with me, Jess. Aren't you tired? Because I am. I am so damn tired, and I know you have to be too."

That was what finally cut through the last of Jessica's intentions, the last defenses she had left. Because it was true. She was tired, so fucking tired. Too tired to fight anymore. Too tired to have the strength she would need to ever go face to face with Kilgrave again, and have any chance at all of coming out intact.

She was too damn tired.

Jessica's head dropped slightly, her tangled dark hair falling forward to obscure her vision. She stared past the partial view its strands allowed, eyes half closed, not quite seeing the objects in front of her.

Trish knew her better than Jessica had realized. At last, Trish had come to understand that Jessica was not the hero Trish had thought she was, the hero that Trish wanted her to be. Trish would not admit it; she loved Jessica too much to do that. But this was what she was saying, by urging Jessica to walk away.

She didn't think that Jessica could get through this and win. She didn't think Jessica was capable of being a hero anymore.

Jessica had tried to tell her all along that Trish's starry-eyed view of her heroism was bullshit, that she sucked at anything resembling a role model. She could barely play the part of a human being most days. A super hero was stretching it far beyond Jessica's emotional capacity.

But even with all her protests and eye rolls, a tiny, unspoken part of Jessica had liked that Trish saw her that way, no matter what Jessica did to prove her wrong. It was the same part of Jessica that actually wanted to be the hero Trish thought she was already.

Maybe it was time now to finally acknowledge that it was never going to happen. Jessica had tried to save the world. She had tried to push beyond her own fuck ups and, as much as she hated the phrase, make a difference, and she had failed. She had tried to prove to the world that Hope was innocent…but maybe the truth was that she wasn't.

After all, Jessica wasn't. No matter what Kilgrave had commanded, no matter how deeply under her control he had kept her, the truth was that it was Jessica's hands and Jessica's strength that were the final cause of a woman's death. Blood was on her hands, the blood of an undeserving and defenseless woman, no matter how much Jessica regretted it or wanted to take it back, no matter how much she had hated her own actions. It would never take away the fact that Jessica Jones had murdered her.

Jessica could not truly be innocent in Reva's murder. If everything was right and fair in the world, she would be in jail alongside Hope. They had both killed, no matter for what reason.

She had said all along that Hope was innocent. But perhaps Hope would not agree. Perhaps Hope also felt the physical heaviness of guilt and shame and regret of her crime, and it was only by paying penance as society demanded that she could ever find any degree of peace. Maybe it was what she needed. Maybe she would be better off than Jessica herself, if only Jessica would walk away.

"Jessica…Jess?"

Trish's voice sounded far away, not anywhere near her ears, but Jessica registered it all the same. She closed her eyes, her temples beginning to pulse a rapid beat in near synchronism with her heart's uneven thuds. When she nodded, just barely enough for someone else to see, she felt her cheeks grow damp with tears she had not realized were in danger of appearing.

Jessica jolted back into full awareness of her body, of her surroundings and the present moment, when she felt Trish's gentle hand on her shoulder, giving enough time and light enough pressure for Jessica to stop herself, barely, from lashing out. She tolerated it as Trish gave her shoulder one quick squeeze, then pressed a kiss to the crown of her head. Her cheeks were wet again when Trish took a step back.

"Okay. Come on, then. Let's go."

When Jessica didn't immediately stand, Trish helped her, pulling back the chair she was seated in and grasping her by the arm, giving a light tug to encourage her to rise. She didn't release Jessica's arm from her grasp as she started to walk away, stopping only to gather what Jessica realized dimly were their personal belongings, objects that could potentially lead back to tracking them down or identifying them as at one time being present.

"Don't say anything," Trish told her, taking a breath that even Jessica heard. "Don't look back."

And for once, Jessica didn't feel the immediate impulse to do the opposite of what she had been instructed. She didn't want to see the response that Kilgrave would have to their exit, or whether he could read their lips enough to realize what was happening. Later, much later, she would wonder if he had called out to them immediately, if he had pounded on the glass or made useless commands that they could not hear and were not bound to follow. She would wonder, but she would never know. She would not see him again, and she could only hope that no one else would either.


	2. Chapter 2

Trish had called for a cab, once she and Jessica were outside of the building. While Jessica didn't question this, she did question Trish's instructions to be taken to the airport. Apparently, when Trish made a decision to walk away, that was exactly what she intended to do, leaving all expensive, carefully chosen possessions behind her.

"There isn't anything back there so important that it can't be replaced," Trish said, when Jessica finally asked. "This is our lives, Jess. If we really do want something, I can have it packed and delivered to us later. But not now. Now, we need to just get the hell away, as fast and far as we can."

Jessica didn't argue with her. The only things she owned that were worth anything to her were old pictures of her family, and a few of herself and Trish posing together from when they were younger. It wasn't as though she had kept those out to look at anyway. It hurt too much to have constant visual reminders of what was long gone and could never be returned. Better to let those things go, shove them back in her memory, and drown any feelings left over with booze.

She let Trish take charge of the planning. It seemed like she knew what she was doing, although it was generally Jessica who bolted when things got too intense for her. For someone as relentlessly persistent as Trish, though, the woman seemed to have a pretty good idea of what was needed to disappear.

And anyway, things always seemed to get fucked up when Jessica was the one taking charge. It wasn't like Trish could do much worse.

In the cab, Jessica could see Trish's manicured fingers out the corner of her eye, nervously drumming against her knee. The blonde's eyes looked straight ahead, as though to keep herself from distraction, and she licked her lips twice without speaking. So perhaps Trish wasn't as sure of herself as she seemed.

Jessica leaned her head back against the back of the seat, not quite closing her eyes, but letting her gaze go soft and slightly blurred. A sudden touch against her thigh made her tense, twitching and automatically jerking her leg out from beneath the hand attempting to rest upon it. She knew a second after the reflex that it was only Trish, but it took an inner counting to ten before some of the tension in her body eased, and she could allow the hand to remain.

Trish sighed at Jessica's reaction, but the sound was tired more than disappointed or upset. For several more moments she simply kept her hand on Jessica's leg, a light pressure intended maybe in support or comfort, maybe just to let Jessica know that she was still there, if Jessica had slipped into her own thoughts and no longer quite present in the moment. When Jessica didn't twitch again, Trish leaned towards her, inch by inch, and slowly moved her head to rest against Jessica's shoulder. She kept it there carefully, as though prepared to move back into her own space bubble, should Jessica give an indication that this was what she wanted.

Jessica remained still, stiff, beneath her, her thoughts not quite giving way to words. Just before she was certain that Trish was going to move away, she let her head tilt downward, just enough to rest against the top of the other woman's. It couldn't be said that she relaxed, but she made no effort to move away, and that was the best Trish could expect.

88

In the airport, it was decided (by Trish, of course) that they were headed to Australia. Trish's logic was that it was a considerable distance away, and they spoke English, so it wouldn't be necessary to learn another language to get by long term. Jessica contended that with their accents and weird little sayings, Australian was another language, and one she'd be mocking relentlessly. Still, the other alternative of the same criteria meant going to England, or a country far too close to England, and that was not an option. Jessica couldn't have stood being surrounded by British accents everywhere she went and still held on to any degree of sanity.

So Australia it was. The only thing that could be said for it was that Jessica was pretty sure the actress Ruby Rose was from there. Or if she wasn't, at least her Orange is the New Black character was.

It would be an ungodly long amount of time actually getting to Australia, involving multiple layovers and far too much time at airports with little to do but wait. So Jessica got busy right off on making the ordeal more bearable, ordering as many drinks as would be served to her in the airport bar. She ignored Trish's hint, then broad declaration, that drinking before flying might not be the best idea, and carried on with getting as buzzed as she could. Hey, if she was about to go on her first flight, she would have to be well prepared, and by that, Jessica's definition was drunk.

By the time Trish had managed to sweet talk her way into a closer, already sold out flight time, Jessica was pretty well past the stage of "drunk" and on her way to "plastered." Her walk was better described as a stagger, and her speech was slurred enough that Trish, with thinned lips, a shake of her head, and a resigned sigh, had advised her not to talk at all.

"Try not to breathe on anyone too much either, they'll definitely smell it. Actually, we'd better get you some coffee and gum before we board, and I think you'd better hang onto my arm when we pass by anyone who has any kind of authority here. I guess we could go with saying you have a migraine if it come down to it," she had started to trouble shoot aloud, as Jessica just hoped she would stop talking before a migraine actually did pop up in response to her. "I just don't want you to end up being refused this flight and us having to wait for the later one after all, Jess, so just let me do the talking."

"Right, better they think we're touchy feely lesbos than clumsy drunk fugitives," Jessica had muttered, snickering to herself as Trish had looped her arm through hers.

Trish had narrowed her eyes at her in a manner that was far too reminiscent of her mother as she secured her grasp on her, pulling Jessica closer into her side for emphasis.

"Let's just get the coffee."

Two cups and a pack of gum later, Jessica was slightly more in control of her thoughts and movements, just in time for the first call for them to board. It had not occurred to her until she was being half lead, half propelled forward by Trish down the long hallway to the plane's entrance that she had never actually been aboard a plane before, and definitely for the length of time she was about to be. Maybe neither of them had thought this through quite as much as they should have.

Trish had at least had the foresight, and the cash, of course, to put them in first class instead of the presumably more crowded other possibilities of travel. Still, once they had taken their seats, Jessica was acutely aware that they were now enclosed in what was more or less a huge, heavy tube of metal that happened to have wings, motors, and wheels attached.

How the hell was this thing actually going to lift up into the air, filled with dozens, maybe hundreds of people, and fly across an ocean? Was there any way that they could be sure that they would have enough fuel, or that the engines were all going to work perfectly the entire way? What if it was hijacked exactly in the middle of the ocean? Could she know positively that someone on the plane wasn't ordered by Kilgrave to follow her, that they wouldn't suddenly pop up and hurt her or Trish or the pilot or anyone else on the flight, just to get back at Jessica for what she had done? How could she be sure there would be enough air for them all to even breathe for this long in here? She couldn't seem to get enough air to breathe right the fuck now!

She hadn't quite realized that she was going into a panic attack until she heard the harsh, almost wheezing gasps of someone close, someone struggling to draw in breath, and then the pressure in her own chest forced her to realize that it was her. She heard a strane female voice somewhat near, calling out to her, but it paled in volume to her hearing compared to the wild pounding of her own heartbeat.

"Miss? Miss, are you all right? Is there anything I can get you?"

"She's fine," she heard Trish responding, also distant, but familiar, blessedly, reassuringly familiar. "She's a little nervous, first flight, you know? Thank you for your concern, but we are fine here."

Fine? Jessica wasn't fine, she wasn't nervous, she was fucking choking to death! But even as she tried to force this heated counter to Trish's assurance, she heard Trish address her, closer to hear ears than before. She could feel the heat of her body near her and realized she must be leaning in close, her lips almost touching her ear.

"Breathe, Jess, just breathe. I'm not going to touch you, no one is going to touch you. No one is going to hurt you. You're safe. Just breathe."

Gradually the overwhelming tangle of anxious thoughts began to loosen, then break apart in her mind, and the panic choking her chest and throat began to ease as though in response to Trish's words. When she heard her remind her of "streets," Jessica didn't understand at first, and then the stupid mantra clicked in place.

"Birch street…Higgins drive…Main street…Cobalt lane."

With each word her clarity of the present, her sense of control, returned a little more, until she could finally take in her actual surroundings. It wasn't until the last two words that Jessica was able to look down in response to the odd cramping of her left hand and realized that her grasp of her armrest had crushed and mangled the thing into something almost unrecognizable.

Following her gaze, Trish smiled slightly. "Can't go anywhere without paying your collateral damage."

The words were gentle, not sarcastic, meant to draw her further still into the present. When Jessica breathed out a final time, prying her hand open from the armrest and slowly bringing it to rest against her knee, Trish waited, assessing her expression, and then reached to cover Jessica's hand with hers. She squeezed lightly, not seeming to mind when Jessica didn't entwine her fingers with hers in response.

"It's done now, Jess. It's over. Everything's over now."

But it wasn't true. They were running from the present, not moving on from the past. There was a difference. Wasn't there?


	3. Chapter 3

Once they hit Australia soil, Jessica refused to stay in a hotel room, no matter how nice Trish assured her it would be. The nicer it was, the more expensive, the more luxurious services offered, the more it would remind her of Kilgrave and all the places he had taken her, of all the rooms that had not been home and all the beds he had commanded her into. Instead, she had planted herself in a bar for the day, more than happy to let Trish take over the task of searching for apartment and condo rentals that would suit both her and Jessica's standards and preferences.

She let Trish take care of the selection of groceries and toiletries, furniture and décor, hygienic items and enough clothing to get them through several weeks. It wasn't as though Jessica cared about "pretty" or any kind of style for her surroundings, and her only criteria for clothes was not uncomfortable, not overly girly, and not flashy. Trish had told her more than a few times that she basically had two outfits she wore over and over again, and she wasn't wrong. Why knock a look that worked?

Trish ended up finding them a two bedroom condo not far from Sydney's shore, with a view that even Jessica had to admit to herself was impressive. She had yet to research anything at all about Australian laws or customs to figure out how it was that Trish had bought things without having Australian money, or even if Australia had a monetary system that was different from America's, but Trish had evidently managed to accomplish everything she had set out to do in an impressively brief span of time.

"Did you really think this was a spur of the moment decision of mine?" Trish had leveled at her, both eyebrows raised, when Jessica had muttered a sarcastic comment about blondes with cash to spend. "I've been waiting for you to come to your senses from the moment you escaped him, Jessica. I've been ready for a year now to drop everything and go- for you. I figured out how to do it and what we'd need three days after you came back last year. The only thing that held me back was waiting for you to finally go through every last thing you had to try before you could figure out you'd done everything you could. I was waiting for you to be ready to go."

Jessica had looked away from Trish's level gaze, unable to take the force of caring and commitment in her words, even as she knew that this was exactly what Trish wanted her to hear. She did hear- but inside, she had her own mental protests against them.

Trish didn't stop her when Jessica deflected any sort of answer, instead reaching for a bottle of whiskey and drinking straight from the bottle. It was nowhere near 5 pm in Australia time, but that didn't mean it wasn't back in New York. Not that Jessica had given a damn about proper drink time protocol in the past few years.

If Trish had always been ready to run, that had to mean that a part of her had always expected that Jessica would fail, that she would screw up so badly or be so over her head in what she was up against that she wouldn't be able to survive without fleeing. That had to mean that no matter what she said to Jessica about being a hero, the truth was that Trish expected to be disappointed. Trish expected that in the end, instead of Jessica saving Trish, it was Trish and her money, Trish and her plans, who would save Jessica.

The thing was, Trish thought she'd saved them from danger, when the worst danger of all was just being a part of Jessica's life. And she never seemed to see that at all.

88

Jessica got both herself and Trish fake IDs, once they had settled in over the first few weeks. Now, according to documentation, Trish was Hannah Johansen, and Jessica was Whitney Baldwin. It wasn't that they truly needed them, she had reasoned, when Trish questioned her, but that they might, one day. It was better to be prepared than caught off guard.

She didn't know what might be going on, back in the United States. Jessica had never been one to watch the news on TV or to click on news links on the Internet, and she had definitely never had an interest in joining social media. She kept herself as in the dark about current events as she could, because knowledge of perilous events or dangerous people, she had long ago determined, compelled her into the need to take action.

She didn't want to see anything about a man being found in a sealed bunker, whether dead or alive. She didn't want to know if any other super villains had cropped up back home, or whether Malcolm had gone back into drugs or Luke had ever moved on from her betrayal. She didn't want to read the speculation about the vanished status of Patricia Walker and what she might be up to. For all she knew, both she and Trish could be on the FBI's most wanted list, or someone could be hired to try to track them down. She didn't know, didn't want to know, and because Trish never seemed to be checking and never brought it up, she suspected Trish didn't want to know either.

Instead, they began to build new lives for themselves in Sydney. Trish decided to go back to school as her Hannah Johansen identity, studying psychology- an ironic move, Jessica had made sure to point out to her, given that Trish herself likely qualified for at least a few mental health diagnoses. Jessica suspected that Trish was trying to understand herself, her abusive mother, and Jessica too, maybe even to figure out how to "fix" herself and Jessica. Well, she might fix herself, but Jessica had long ago dismissed her damaged psyche as beyond repair.

Jessica found work as a security guard. Boring, a waste of her actual abilities and brain power, but she couldn't have let Trish take care of all the expenses alone. Especially with the amount of money she still spent on booze.

Trish had tried to encourage Jessica to get into college too, to figure out what she wanted in life.

"Your future is yours, Jess," she had said, falling back on the sort of pep talk that she should know by now was not something Jessica found inspiring. "You're free to build your life how you want it. Take this opportunity and run with it. Don't worry about money, I have that covered. Just tell me what you want to do, and we'll make it happen."

But what if all Jessica wanted to do was survive, one day at a time? What if sometimes, she wasn't even sure if she wanted that?

88

Sometimes, Jessica felt almost right, almost normal. Right when she came home for work, right as dawn began to stretch over the horizon, and she passed by Trish in the hallway, getting up tousled and sleepy to prepare for an early class. No matter what mood Jessica was in, or how busy Trish was, she would take the time to smile and tell her good morning, ignoring Jessica's grunts or eye rolls as she leaned in to hug her quickly. And each time, just as Trish pulled back and continued on the way, Jessica would feel her body relax just a little, her mouth sometimes softening into something resembling a smile. Each afternoon when she woke from the early morning drinking binge that had finally allowed her to sleep, she would find painkillers beside her, a blanket pulled over her, and fresh coffee waiting in the pot. All Trish, of course.

Trish still nagged her, gently, but consistently, on Jessica's drinking. She worried aloud about Jessica's liver and heart, her brain, even her physical safety. That was a laugh, given Jessica's abilities; how exactly did she think Jessica would end up in a situation where she was drunk enough to lose her strength and speed?

"It could happen, Jessica," Trish had insisted when Jessica shrugged this off, her blue eyes serious. "You could black out and you don't know what someone could do to you. You could stumble off a building or into traffic-"

"Been there, done that," Jessica had interrupted, spreading out her arms in dramatic gesture. "Still alive, no lasting scars to show for it."

"You could make decisions you'll regret later," Trish had persisted, ignoring her comments. "People could use you. People could hurt you, and not just physically. But mostly, Jess, I'm worried because of what your drinking says about your emotional and mental state."

She had hesitated, checking just how far Jessica would allow her to go with this, how close she was to shutting down and cutting her off. But even as Jessica had tensed, her brow furrowing deeply, Trish had taken the plunge to finish what she had set out to say.

"It's a crutch, Jessica. Drinking is hiding, not helping. Like drugs were for me."

The damned thing about it was that sometimes Jessica knew she was right. Some nights, she felt guilty even before she touched the evening's first bottle, and by the time she drained her last, she hated herself and the anxious, fearful mess of her own uncontrollable thoughts. She felt in those moments just how weak she considered herself, how much of a failure, a person without anything to offer anyone, with no reason to exist in the world.

Trish might understand addiction, and how hard it was to stop. But what she didn't get was that she had succeeded because she was the better person than Jessica was, because she was stronger, powers or not.

88


	4. Chapter 4

Nearly every night, Jessica saw him again. It was bad enough in the day; the simplest thing, from the smell of someone's cologne passing certain restaurants, a sudden touch or unexpected movement nearby, could trigger a memory that would catapult her back in time, again at the mercy of Kilgrave's whim and will. Suddenly she could see him and hear him, no matter the reality of her actual surroundings, as vivid and convincing as the rapid beating of her own heart.

"I'll never really leave you, Jessica," he had told her once. "No matter what you might try to do to break away, you will never be able. Even if you managed, I've made my way inside you now, forever. I'm a part of you now."

More than anything, Jessica feared that this was true. Sometimes there seemed no other reasonable explanation for why with so much distance and time between them, he could in moments seem only finger tip length away from her.

Still, as bad as the flashbacks were, she preferred them over the nightmares. At least with the visions in the day time, she sometimes could gain control enough to realize what was happening, to be able to stutter out the stupid, overrated therapist's little chant of street names or reach for the closest bottle to drown it all out. She had no control of her dreams, and she had no way of blocking them from happening.

There were the usual ones, the standards, if they could be considered such a thing; replays of Kilgrave commanding her to dress, using her as his personal mannequin or life size doll, putting words in her mouth and a smile on her lips. His body over hers, every part of his bare skin in contact with hers, and wanting so badly to stop him, wanting to say no, but frozen inside herself, unable to show any sign of her rage and disgust, of her shame of her own victimhood. Her hatred of herself for her feelings of actual pleasure, even as she knew they were merely due to his command.

There were the even more horrific dreams of the times he hurt her, or used her to hurt overs. The worst of it being Reva, the blank look that came over her face, the emptying out of her personhood in the moment that death came. The force of her body flying backward, weightless, so easy for Jessica to harm. The crack of her sternum as bones broke , the feel of them giving beneath Jessica's fist, and the appalling lack of physical damage to Jessica herself. The knowledge that she, once daring to imagine she could be a hero, had now become a murderer.

And now there were new dreams, every bit as bad. Now there were dreams of Hope, wasting away in prison, hardened and haggard and scarred, without any of the bright future and innocence she had once possessed. There was Malcolm, floundering and purposeless, gradually falling back into drugs until the final, fatal overdose.

But the worst of it was Kilgrave. Not what he was doing to her, but what Jessica had done to him.

She saw herself hurting him, hitting him, knowing full well of the pain she was causing him and enjoying it, relishing that she, for once, held power over him. She had known, in the cell she had abandoned him to, how little it would take to kill him. She had known, and for a moment, she had been ready to go through with it. She had been ready to kill again- this time, of her own free will.

She saw the aftermath of her departure, all the possibilities of what she and Trish had left him to. Kilgrave, shouting in vain, with no one to hear his commands, his rages, or his pleas. Kilgrave clawing at the barriers of his prison, bounding at the see through walls, and yielding nothing for his frantic efforts but bruised knuckles and toes, bleeding fingers and broken nails. Kilgrave commanding the walls to break, trying to break apart the bench bolted into the floor to use as a battering ram against them. Kilgrave cupping his hands to drink the water lining the floor of his cell, cheeks sunken, disheveled and dirty with the passage of time. Kilgrave tearing at his own clothing, his own skin, biting at the fabric of his shirt in desperate effort to obtain some sort of nutrition. Kilgrave delirious, suffering as his imprisonment stretched on. Kilgrave too weak to move, shivering on the sodden floor. Kilgrave, dying.

Leaving him, Jessica realized then, had been torture, just as he had tortured her, just as he had tortured others. It should feel satisfying, like a fit ending to a life that surely didn't deserve to continue.

Then why did she wake up trembling, every time, panting and sweating, dangerously close to tears?

88

It wasn't the first time that Jessica had dreamed of Kilgrave's death. But this time, she woke up lacking her usual disorientation and terror, her usual panicked clash of thought. This time, though breathless and anxious, Jessica felt a hollowness in her chest rather than an overdrive of emotion. Because this time, though she couldn't have explained why, she felt was actually true.

She didn't check the news in the United States. She couldn't be sure that it would have been a headline, even if she had. It was possible that if Kilgrave was indeed dead, his body hadn't been discovered, might not be for weeks or months, even years. She had chosen the location of his imprisonment carefully enough for this to be possible. She had no way of knowing, truly knowing, whether her feeling was anything more than just a feeling. But it remained, heavy and insistent, almost a physical presence weighting her down.

What did that mean, if Kilgrave really was finally dead?

She sat up in bed, her breath still just a little too shallow and quick to be normal, the hairs of her pale skin standing up with the chilled feeling of her body. Her throat felt raw, certain to hurt if she had spoken, and in spite of the coldness of her body, her face felt strangely heated. She sat, the stupid street mantra far from her thoughts, and startled when her bedroom door eased open a crack, with on blue eye visible through the opening.

"It's me, Jess," Trish said softly, still hovering at the door without yet pushing it open further. "Trish."

When Jessica didn't answer, she opened the door, slowly, carefully, as though taking pains not to make any unnecessary noises or fast movements. Likely, that was exactly the case. Trish wasn't going to forget any time soon the times she hadn't been quite so cautious about coming towards Jessica without ample warning. Jessica's instinctive hitting out had sent her to the ground or across the room on more than one occasion, and she couldn't be eager to have any repeats.

Seeing that Jessica was sitting up, not in hyperventilation mode, and her open eyes appeared oriented to the present, if somewhat distant in focus, Trish's shoulders relaxed slightly, and some of the anxiety, but none of the concern, left her eyes. She eased herself fully into the room, but made no move yet to approach the other woman.

"You okay, Jess? You were screaming out in your sleep."

So that explained why her throat hurt. Fuck. Jessica wasn't about to ask what it was she had said, and she hoped Trish wasn't going to volunteer.

Jessica nodded tightly, feeling a muscle pull in her neck. She covered a flinch, keeping her face stony, but Trish knew her better by then, enough to possibly see. She suspected as much when the blonde took one step, then another in her direction, eventually easing herself to sit beside Jessica on the bed. The whole time she kept her eyes on Jessica's, waiting for her to react negatively, and even when it became clear that Jessica was not going to, she kept just enough distance between them on the bed to allow Jessica some space.

She really had learned her lessons on Jessica Jones very well, harsh as they might have been.

"Okay," Trish responded to Jessica's nod, gently accepting the answer she had received, although Jessica knew she didn't, couldn't believe her. "I'm going to sit here anyway, though. If that's okay."

She didn't say anything else, or demand any kind of further response from Jessica. She just sat with her, not making an attempt to touch, asking and expecting nothing from her. This was the only thing that Jessica could have tolerated, the only thing that would help, and she found herself calming slowly, her breathing beginning to ease out closer in rhythm to Trish's over time.

When several minutes had passed, Trish finally broke the silence between them, her voice quiet, a suggestion rather than a request.

"You can tell me about the dreams, if you want to. I've never asked before, Jess, but it could help to say it out loud."

Jessica's jaw flexed as she shook her head, brief, but definite. To speak her visions, her memories aloud, was to make them real all over again, alive in the moment and vivid in her heart. That was something that none of the stupid fucking therapists Trish had advocated for over and over again, and even Trish herself, never seemed to get. Talking, whatever they said to the contrary, absolutely did make it all worse.

"Okay," Trish nodded, accepting her answer, though she did sigh briefly. "Okay."

Silence stretched for several more minutes, and then Trish shifted slightly on the bed, just a little closer to Jessica than before.

"I hate that you still go through this, Jess, that's all. I just wish there was a way for it to stop. I know you're not interested in therapy, or medication-"

"Yes, you do," Jessica cut her off, holding up a hand as though in shielding of the rejected words. "So save your breath, I know your speech and you know mine."

"I get it," Trish nodded, "I do. I just…Jess, I just want things to be better for you. We're in a new place, with a new life, and we're both safe now. I want you to be able to really have the rest and the peace that you deserve."

Jessica laughed sharply, the noise jagging at her raw throat, but coming out all the same. Before she could check herself, she snapped, "Like I deserve? You actually think I deserve peace?"

Trish blinked, her eyes going wide and earnest as she leaned in slightly, catching Jessica's.

"Yes, of course, Jess. Of course you do. After everything you've been through, and everything you've done-"

"I caused my entire family to die, Trish," Jessica interrupted, her voice growing louder, more intense with every few words. "I put you and anyone else who gave a damn about me in danger and exposed them to torture, just for knowing me. I failed at being a hero before I'd hardly started. I ruined more people's lives than I helped them. I dedicate myself to getting wasted more than anything that actually adds to anything or anyone in this world. I killed a woman, and then fucked her grieving husband when I fucking knew who he was, the whole fucking time. I tortured a human being," and her voice dropped in pitch then, cracking, but still she couldn't stop, she couldn't keep the words from pouring forth. "I tortured him, and I left him to die a long, painful death alone. What exactly have I done to deserve peace, Trish?"

She could feel her breath catch, ragged and harsh in her roughened throat, and a hot coiling of self-hatred bubbled in her gut when tears stung her eyes. Still, however much she loathed herself for giving in to their presence, they did provide a blurred, unreal haze to her vision, and that was almost something to be glad for. She couldn't see Trish now, didn't want to see her. Still, she sensed her shifting closer still, tensed in anticipation and automatic near recoil as Trish closed her arms around her, drawing Jessica close to her chest.

Jessica made an attempt to push herself back from her, but it was half hearted at best, and Trish was determined. The other woman tightened her arms around her, one hand moving to exert light pressure against Jessica's head, guiding it down to her shoulder. The other rested in the center of her back, pressing her against her until Jessica could feel the steady beat of Trish's heart against the wild gallop of her own.

It was weakness, undeserved, unwanted weakness, but Jessica let Trish hold her, let her head fall against the plane of her shoulder, let her eyes close and her arms stay limp in her embrace. She stayed, biting down on the inside of her cheeks, but this effort didn't stop tears from seeping beneath her eyes' tightly screwed lids.

"You did the right thing, Jessica," Trish said, quiet but firm, sounding utterly convinced of her own words. "There is not anything else you could have done that would have worked. You tried other ways, and every one of them was dangerous to you and everyone else. No matter what you tell yourself or what you think about yourself, you are a hero, Jessica Jones. That's the truth. You've always been a hero to me, and now you're a hero to so many more. You stopped him, Jessica. No one else, you. You saved countless people from being used and abused and murdered by him. It was the right thing to do. You were the only one who could do it, and you just did what you had to do."

With every word she stroked a hand over Jessica's prominent spine, carding her fingers through her tangled hair partly in effort to soothe, partly to tame it into something resembling neatness. She held her, pressing her cheek against the side of Jessica's head, and again, then again, she told her that she had been right.

Then why the fuck didn't it feel right? Why did she feel so fucking wrong?


	5. Chapter 5

Jessica could feel Trish watching her, almost every time they both occupied the apartment. It wasn't stalking, or anything she could point out as invasive, exactly. She wasn't staring, or following her, or even saying anything out of the way. Still, Jessica could sense her watchfulness. It almost felt to her as though Trish were waiting- though for what, Jessica couldn't imagine.

Trish wasn't nagging her anymore, or at least, not very often. She wasn't prodding her to clean up or go out and actually do something with her, out where there could actually be people Jessica might be forced to interact with. She wasn't even going on about Jessica's drinking. Instead, she picked up whatever messes Jessica might make without fussing, put her dirty clothes in the wash without being asked, and recycled the cans and bottles that Jessica often simply let sit or fall where they had been finished off. On the days that Jessica drank herself to the point of blacking out or falling asleep, she would wake up to find that Trish had removed her shoes, put a pillow beneath her head, and tucked a blanket around her shoulders.

Trish was accepting her, caring for her. And that made Jessica more uncomfortable than if she had screamed and shouted and rejected her outright.

So Jessica started to push. She picked arguments, upped her sarcastic comments, and made herself deliberately more obnoxious in her hygiene and messiness. She stayed out late and came in drunk more and more frequently. She made comments to try to provoke Trish and hurt her, even as she hated herself for doing it, because somewhere, even Trish had to have a breaking point. Trish had to cut her off- because what would happen to her, what would Jessica do to her life, if she didn't?

Sooner or later, Trish had to realize that Jessica and her issues, Jessica and her baggage, Jessica and her supervillain stalker had fucked up her life. Trish was going to have it dawn on her that by fleeing the country with Jessica, setting her up with a whole new life, she had thrown her own life away in the process.

Trish had been doing so well, come so far. She had cut herself off from her mother and her abuse, she had overcome her addictions and put herself in a career where she was respected and able to be a voice for others. She was wealthy, she was settled, and she was famous and adored. She could have been dating, she could have gotten married, even. She could have friends who actually knew who she was. She could have kept her own damn name and her own identity, everything she had worked so hard to build for herself.

But she had thrown it all away, for Jessica. One day, Jessica was certain, she would realize this, and she would walk away, give up on Jessica like she should have long ago. So Jessica tried to hurry that day along, get it done and over with before it caught her by surprise.

But it wasn't happening. No matter what Jessica did, Trish wasn't breaking, and she wasn't walking away. Sure, sometimes she got that awful hurt look in her eyes, or pressed her lips together and left the room, sometimes she snapped back. But she always came back, always apologized, and always told Jessica later- calmly, quietly- what Jessica had done to hurt. It didn't seem to matter that more often than not, Jessica could respond with only sarcasm or with nothing at all. She still came back, every time.

There was no particular incident that set off her eventual explosion. It was a typical Sunday afternoon, with both Jessica and Trish off for the day and without any plans. Not that Jessica would normally make any, other than those involving some close and personal time with whiskey.

Trish wasn't saying or doing anything out of the ordinary; in fact, she wasn't even addressing or looking towards Jessica at all. She made no comments about Jessica drinking at 2 pm, nor the fact that she had started from the moment she woke around 12. She was sitting beside her on the couch, one of her college textbooks propped up on the coffee table as she typed notes, presumably, into her laptop.

Gradually, the steady clatter of the keyboard's keys, the occasional swish of Trish's turning of pages, and her even breathing and focused expression beside her began to grate on Jessica's nerves. Her muscles stiffened into hard cords as she began to feel that every slight movement of her friend's was a pointed jab of sorts towards her, an exaggerated showcasing of Jessica's own faults. Here Trish was, even on a damn Sunday, doing her schoolwork, neatly dressed and ready for the day that she had no plans for, calm and collected and at ease. And there was Jessica, still wearing the clothes she had the day before, the same clothes she had slept in, hair and teeth unbrushed, still in need of a shower and some stretching after having spent the night on the couch. Here was Jessica, drinking for the past two hours, with no other plans but to continue.

Of course Trish had to see this, the obvious difference between them of who and what they were. She was pointing that out on purpose, without ever saying a word. And if she wasn't…then how stupid was she?

Her anger bubbled over then, and Jessica slammed her near empty bottle down on the coffee table, hard enough that it shattered. Trish jumped, eyes widening, but before she could ask, Jessica's words spilled out.

"Why don't you just fucking give it up, Trish?"

Trish blinked, her eyes flitting from Jessica's clinched jaw and narrowed eyes to the broken bottle still partly clutched in her fist, tightly enough that the glass had cut into her palm and fingers. She reached out a hand towards it as though on instinct, but Jessica jerked it back, dropping the glass fragments and placing her bleeding palm flat against her thigh to hide the marks.

"Give up what, Jess? What's going on? Look what you did to your hand, it's bleeding. Let me see-"

"It isn't going to happen," Jessica interrupted, barely hearing the other woman's confused words, and ignoring the gestures she made to help.

That was the problem, that was always the problem. Trish was always so damn eager to help, and didn't she get it, didn't she see that Jessica didn't want her help, Jessica didn't fucking deserve her help, and the last thing Trish needed was any kind of involvement with her where her help was being offered? Well if she didn't get it, if she didn't want to see, then Jessica would spell it out to her.

"It won't happen, Trish," she repeated, with rough emphasis to her words. "I'm not going to be any different. I'm not going to change. You can't help me, you can't fucking change me, do you get it? I'm not going to be better, so stop fucking waiting for it to happen, stop thinking that I can! This is me, Trish. Forever! This is how things fucking are for me, so whatever you think you can do, whatever you're waiting for, STOP!"

She was breathing hard, more breaths seeming to go out from her than to be drawn in, and her chest was beginning to ache with that imbalance. It wasn't only her injured hand that was trembling against her thigh. This was something she utterly believed, what she was telling Trish, something that needed to be said and understood between them. Then why did it hurt so much to say it?

Trish's expression didn't shift much in its conveyed feelings; if anything, she seemed more concerned than before as she tilted her head towards Jessica, her perfectly plucked eyebrows drawing together slightly in thought.

"Jessica….slow down," she said quietly, making no movements, as though she thought any shift in her posture might set her off. She wasn't likely wrong in that; Jessica felt wired and wild enough then to make a run for it at almost any increase in her stress.

"I'm not sure where this is coming from," Trish continued, still keeping her voice soft and slow. "But we can talk about this. Let's take a minute and calm down, okay?"

"No," Jessica blurted, shaking her head hard, her hair whipping out enough that Trish flinched as it almost hit her cheek. "No, Trish, that's what you've been waiting for, all this time, for me to CALM DOWN, for me to just be normal, just be okay. Like I ever was! Do you even know what I was like, before you met me? Big surprise, Trish, I was still an asshole, I was still a sarcastic freak who couldn't have paid someone to be her friend and didn't want to in the first place. I have never been NORMAL, Trish, even before all this shit! But that's what you want, isn't it?"

Her nails had begun to rip holes into the dark material of her jeans, her bleeding palm mingled in with the already stained knee as she ground out what she had been keeping back, what she had always felt but never quite but forth in words. Not like this.

"You've been waiting all this time for me to be a hero again. You took me away from everything back there, you gave up your whole life, just because you thought it would make me a hero. But I've told you, Trish, I've told you and told you that I'm not a hero, that I am never going to be a hero that you think I can be. Why don't you just fucking believe me? What is it going to take for you to see that?"

She was blinking against sudden tears, gritting her teeth against them, and her voice came out hoarse and strained with the effort of keeping them back.

"I've told you, but you keep looking at me and waiting, just knowing and expecting that one day I'll be different, that one day I'll be what you think I am. I will NEVER be different, Trish, that day isn't going to fucking come. Don't you see that yet? Don't you see what I've done? I made my entire family die! I flunked out of being a super hero, I can't keep even a minimum wage job. I don't go to school, I don't have friends, and people stupid enough to get involved with me end up hurt or dead. I am poison to any relationship. I attracted a fucking monster onto me by trying to be the hero you wanted me to be! I can't even remember the names of everyone's lives who was ruined because of me!"

Jessica's chest heaved, and the tears she had struggled to suppress broke free, streaming unchecked and beyond control. She lowered her head, dark tangles of hair falling forward to partly hide her face, as her voice lowered, cracking, unrecognizable to her ears.

"I…I left a man to die. I left him to be…to be slowly tortured. To death. I left him, and I ran like a fucking coward. I-I dragged you out of your life, around the whole damn world, instead of staying and-and finishing my fucking job, my f-fucking duty-"

"Jessica," Trish whispered, beginning to walk towards her, one hand stretched out. Jessica's head shook, slow, then hard, her shoulders jerking with the harsh choking breaths her tears drew out.

"No. No, Trish, no…you have to stop this. You have to….you have to stop looking at me like all of this is different, or, or like it's going to change. Like…like I'm going to be someone else for you. Like I'm going to be a…"

The word hero wouldn't emerge again. Her tongue didn't even feel worthy to saying it aloud anymore.

"I'm not," Jessica finished, her voice barely loud enough to be heard. "I'm not. You have to…you have to stop looking at me like I'm worth something, you have to stop believing in me, stop…stop loving me. Because…because…"

She couldn't finish the sentence; she couldn't even finish the thought in her mind. Body nearly doubled over, Jessica drew her knees tight against her chest, wrapping her arms around her legs as though to shield herself, or perhaps just her heart. She felt open and raw against her own spoken words, said aloud at last…but more so, against what Trish might do in response.

She waited for Trish to leave, to turn her back on her and walk away, like she had told her to. It would hurt like hell, but it was what she truly believed was needed, what was best for Trish and for her. It was what Trish should have done long before.

But instead, Trish took another step towards her, then another, slow, but steady, without any wavering indecision in her movements. Her hand reached out again, resting against Jessica's upper arm, and when Jessica shrugged her off, trying to bury herself further into her own body's balled form, Trish brushed back her hair, just enough so she could lay her palm flat against Jessica's face. Jessica tensed, her eyes shifting away, trying with growing desperation to avoid being seen, to avoid looking back at her, but Trish hung on, not allowing her to fully escape her gaze.

"Are you finished?" Trish said softly. "Because that's the last time I ever want to hear you say any of that again."

With her free hand, she reached up to thumb away the tears still forming, gently brushing against the angles of Jessica's cheekbones. Jessica's eyes closed, her heart wrenching with genuine pain at this tender touch, but she opened them against her own judgment when Trish continued to talk.

"When I look at you, Jessica Jones, I don't see any of what you just said to me. I don't see it, and I don't believe it. I don't see you for anything but what you are- a brave, strong, beautiful woman who struggles on, no matter what life and the people in her life do to her to knock her down. I see someone who is my hero, and who has been a hero to others for so damn long she doesn't even know anymore that sometimes, the best and only person she should be expected to save is herself."

Trish paused, her fingertips gently stroking against Jessica's cheek. Jessica shivered, swallowing hard, but still, could not bring herself to pull away from her. She stayed motionless, letting Trish touch her like she was worth tenderness, like she was worth understanding.

"It's okay if the last person that you save is yourself," Trish told her, her voice strong, almost fierce with her conviction. "In fact, it's the best thing you could do. Because you are so, so worth being here. You are worth being saved."

The hand not stroking Jessica's cheek lifted to rest on her hair, and Trish lightly scratched her fingers against Jessica's scalp, soothing, slow. As Jessica's crying slowed, then began to gradually shudder into only heightened breathing, she was very much aware of the love that Trish was pouring into her, without the other woman actually speaking the words. She could feel it in her touch, in the emotion of her words, almost as though it were a physical emanation, coming out through her heart and wrapping around Jessica's own. Trish's love for her seemed to be slowly filling in all the cracks and breaklines of Jessica's heart, partly patching the gaping holes and wounds it bore.

Trish loved her; this was not a surprise, not something that was new information, although it was not always something explicitly spoken aloud. Jessica had lived in fear of this love, at some times more intensely than in others, because she knew not only that she was unworthy, but because she knew all too well just what could happen to the people that loved her- and to the people that she dared to love back. She never spoke the words back to her, never even dared to let herself think them in explicit form, because love for Trish seemed dangerous, a direct threat to Trish's presence in her life.

But refusal to speak it did not make it go away, nor did it drive Trish away. It didn't matter what was said or what Jessica did. It was there, unsolicited, expecting and demanding nothing of Jessica in return. Steady, deep, and genuine- other than her parents, the only real love that Jessica had ever known.

She knew this, allowed herself for the first time to really acknowledge this, for the last few moments before Trish's head lowered, before her lips pressed lightly, then with more firmness, against Jessica's own. As Jessica's heartbeat slowed against Trish's, and her lips parted, accepting, giving in even as she let herself at last reach out, she knew even when their bodies drew apart, she would still be unable to speak any words of love out loud.

But it didn't matter. She knew, and Trish did too, that the now steady beating of her heart, in perfect rhythm with Trish's own, was an answering testimony all of its own.

The end


End file.
